I Remember This
by mcdaname
Summary: Steve begins to think Bucky won't ever remember what they used to be. He has never been so happy being wrong.


It's been a month since they had found Bucky curled up in an abandoned industrial warehouse. The team had reluctantly allowed him a floor at the Avengers Tower, under close observation as requested by Tony. He still was less than amicable towards Bucky, but there's plenty of ways to keep your distance in such a large building. However Stark, alongside Banner, still assisted in trying new things to help Bucky remember himself. So far nothing had worked and everyone was getting frustrated. Steve tried to keep up appearances, trying to be as supportive and patient as possible, coming to the lab everyday standing nearby as they tried every neural stimulant, and meditation in the book, but nothing was working.

Today Steve thought maybe Bucky had remembered something. He had been standing about for hours in the lab, watching as they poked and prodded at Bucky, no, James. Bruce had insisted that they call him by his real name in effort to help with identity association. It was already past midnight and Steve was getting tired. It had become harder and harder to sleep this past month, knowing Bucky was so close, just a floor away, but it wasn't his Bucky. So maybe he thought he had imagined it when suddenly Bucky's eyes locked on him, as if he remembered something, and his lips parted. But as soon as he had, Bucky looked away again with confusion swimming in his steely blue eyes.

Steve stood up immediately from where he had been leaning against one of the steel metal lab tables with his arms crossed against his chest. He paced the few steps towards where Bucky was seated with Banner sitting before him on a rolling stool adjusting a sensory pad on his temple. Bucky followed Steve with his eyes, shifting in his chair, eyes darting down to anywhere but Steve's gaze as he rubbed his palms on his dark jeans.

"You remembered something didn't you?" Steve pressed, squatting down to look up at him, with his hands on the arms of the chair, so Bucky would have no choice but to look him in the eyes. "Buc- James," he exhaled closing his eyes to right himself, "Did you remember something?" he said quieter, suppressing his impatience and hopefulness.

At this both Tony and Bruce came to attention, watching Bucky, assessing his behavior. Bucky squirmed under the three intense gazes fixed upon him and shook his head.

Steve sighed in frustration and pushed away from the chair, standing and turning his back to the two scientists and his oldest friend. He pocketed his hands as he clenched his fists, knuckles turning white. He hated this so so much. Sitting everyday watching his team mates do everything they can to help Bucky and- nothing.

How long had he waited, hoped, to get Bucky back. He wanted back everything they had once. Back to those cold winter nights in their one room Brooklyn apartment when their furnace had given out and all they had was each other. Their heat, their skin, their day clothes piled on to keep warm, their sock covered feet touching, doing anything to keep close. He wanted it to be simple again. Just Bucky and Steve against the world. But that life seems so far away now, so out of reach. Steve has had enough, it just hurt too much.

"I think it is well past time for us all to go to bed." Bruce speaks up tentatively, removing his glasses and tucking them into the front pocket of his white lab coat. "Steve, maybe you could escort Mr. Barnes back to his room?"

Steve lets out a hum in compliance, nodding curtly as he turns towards the elevator, not watching to see if Bucky follows him, but he listens for footsteps anyhow. Bucky does follow quietly, tugging on a green henley over his black tank as he steps into the elevator.

The doors glide shut and Steve pushes the button to Bucky's floor and settles in the corner opposite Bucky, not able to bear being so close to him without the aching temptation to reach out touch him like he once could. The ride up to the residential floors of the tower is quiet and so painstakingly long, nothing but the hum of machinery filling the space between them. Then Bucky breaks the silence, his voice coarse in disuse.

"I remember."

Steve turns to Bucky so fast his head spins; his heart starts to beat furiously in his chest. He forces words to leave his lips, scrambling to push down any hope of something he can never have again, or so he thought.

"What… what do you remember?" his voice wavers slightly, breath catching in his throat when he finds Bucky's gaze pinned onto him. He feels so exposed to him as if Bucky knows everything about him, who he is- who he was.

"You." Bucky breathes out.

"Me?" Steve presses. What did he remember? He had proved he had already remembered him when he and Sam had found Bucky in the warehouse.

"Us." Bucky corrects himself hesitantly as if unsure of the word, what it meant to the other.

Steve inhales sharply, butterflies exploding in his stomach, ice running through his veins as his hands turn numb and cold. He swallows thickly trying to formulate just what Bucky meant by "Us."

"Wha-" "We were… together?" Bucky interjects, questioning as if it were maybe just a dream.

Steve nods slowly, frozen in place, watching him put together the pieces in his head.

He carefully repeats his earlier question. "What do you remember?"

He unconsciously takes a step back towards the wall of the elevator as Bucky steps forward, impossibly close, his grey-blue gaze clear in recollection still fixed to Steve's. He reaches between them with his normal arm taking hold of Steve's hand resting at his side and brings it up between them, palm against palm, before intertwining their fingers. Steve moves his eyes from Bucky's to instead glance at their clasped hands.

"I remember this." Bucky says, his warm breath fanning out over Steve's cheeks causing them to flush when he looks back to Bucky. Steve's reaction fascinates him and he is curious of just how much they had between them once. He is unbelievably beautiful, he realizes, looking at him from such a close distance. His eyes a breathtaking shade of blue with long eyelashes fluttering about them casting shadows over his high cheekbones in the low light of the elevator. His lips were a pretty shade of pink from being bitten in nervousness, slightly parted and panting out shallow breaths, his firm chest rising and falling between them. Bucky brings his metal hand to brush a strand of blonde hair off his forehead, then moving to trace over his brow, down the ridge of his nose, brushing his thumb over his bottom lip then to settle his hand over Steve's cheek, the stark contrast of cold metal against warm skin causing his breath to hitch. He moves forward to rest his forehead against Steve's, noses brushing as both of their eyes shut, just revelling in this. The presence of the other, the delicious warmth flowing through the thick air between them.

How long had it been since it had been like this? Too long, they both thought. The void in Steve's chest filled, and he felt whole just to have him this way again, so close he almost couldn't breathe.

"I remember this." he says again, lips only ghosting over the others.

Steve can't hold it in anymore, not a second more after seventy years without him, without his Bucky. He drops his hand from Bucky's instead wrapping it around the back of his neck, pulling him in to close the torturous remaining distance between them.

Steve kisses him gently, carefully, but it wasn't gentleness Bucky wanted, not now after all this time, and he knotted his fists in Steve's shirt pulling him harder against him. Steve sighs softly, low in his throat, into the kiss and one of his hands slide into Bucky's hair, the other running over the expanse of Bucky's back feeling the muscles glide and grow taught under his fingertips as he gathers the other against him as his own back presses into the doors of the elevator, legs slotting between Bucky's.

Bucky is everywhere and nowhere all at once. His clean, slightly woodsy scent is in his nose. His smooth, wavy locks pass between his calloused fingers. His hands blaze trails of hot and cold, one grazing a thumb over Steve's cheek and the other resting on the swell of his hip bone, holding him close. His soft lips move hard against his own in a way that just feels _right_. A kiss like this is possibly the only thing that could intoxicate him and Steve thinks if he doesn't stop now he won't ever be able to. He pulls away from Bucky, resting his forehead against his, breathing hard. He opens his eyes to look at Bucky and his legs tremble at the sight.

He is peering at him in wonder through dazed, half-lidded eyes with pupils blown wide in desire, lips red and slightly swollen, cheeks warm and flushed, and it's unbearably beautiful. It's as if God took one look at Michelangelo's _David_ and said 'I can do better.'

"James.." Steve breathes out in a shaky whisper, hand still entangled in his hair and other resting over Bucky's beating heart.

"Bucky. You call me Bucky." he says placing his own hand on his chest over Steve's, grasping it. "We're together."

"Yeah Buck," he smiles, bringing their held hands to him, brushing his lips across Bucky's knuckles, "until the end of the line."

At that moment the doors behind Steve's back open and he stumbles back into the apartment, but before he could fall Bucky's quick reflexes circle their arms around Steve's waist pulling him into Bucky's chest that shakes with suppressed laughter, eye's crinkling endearingly at the corners. " 'till the end of the line." he echoes with a slight smile, lips pulled up at one side in a smirk so undeniably similar to the Bucky he knew back in Brooklyn, all charm and sex appeal.

"Jerk." Steve mutters at Bucky's low chuckle.

"Punk." Bucky counters and it feels just like old times and it makes Steve's chest tighten and burn with so much raw love.

Steve couldn't resist not kissing him now like he couldn't back when they were young and Bucky had to keep up appearances picking up dames left and right when they went out so no one would be suspicious of how close they were. Back then it was a matter of survival to resist kissing him when he turned on his charm, and Steve supposed it was a matter of survival now to kiss him, because he doesn't think he could live a second longer without his lips on his. So he doesn't wait even a moment, kissing the grin off his face like he's starving for him. And maybe he is, but god Bucky wants it bad too.

The bitter New York winter swirls outside their window, like it did seventy years ago, and they lie in each others warmth, like seventy years ago, but unlike seventy years ago they didn't have to hide, they couldn't afford taking their time, they knew how cruel it was. They feared of jail, of being beaten or killed, of being torn apart by war. And man did that last one mess everything up. So right now there was no letting go, no stopping, no inhibitions, no held back emotions or 'I love you's.'

Right now it was just them, Bucky and Steve against the world, together 'till the end of the line.


End file.
